What is it? I hear you ask. Don’t worry I didn’t know either but I found out.

Super Thursday is the day roughly about 3 months prior to Christmas where many of the big books of the year are released hoping to take a chunk of the lucrative Christmas book sales.

You see books make fantastic gifts. Books are so rich with personality that they present the perfect opportunity for people who like to buy gifts.

What better way to show that you know someone than a book that has been hand picked for their reading pleasure.

Today since we are a highly sophisticated bunch we present to you our squeaky clean book list for people who love to give books. I know… we are sooooo meta!

These books explore the gift giving from various angles. We have anthropology and social evolutionary biology. We have tips and tricks. We have a history of gift giving and special consideration to gift giving for kids.

Language of Gifts: The Essential Guide to Meaningful Gift Giving

You might never have stopped to think about it but gifting is a form of communication. Humans are not the only animals that give gifts other animals such as chimpanzees do it too.

It’s probably fair to say that gift giving is a form of communication that is much older than spoken languages.

There is a language of gift giving – gifts speak. We all speak the language of gifts as it’s something we learn through out culture but you can learn to speak it better and like learning any new language learning the language of gifts can be a really satisfying pursuit.

The Art of Gift Giving

Who better to talk about gift giving than some people whose daily business involves gifts and gift giving.

Each day Unique Gift Hampers send out numerous gifts all carefully prepared to meet the needs of both the giver and the recipient.

They describe themselves as “A team of talented gift preparing elves for those of you who aren’t Santa.”

As they explain, the giver wishes to say something with his gift and this book is about the skill that it takes to say the right thing and not put your foot in it.

To delightfully illustrate this The Art of Gift Giving simply asks us to consider if we ever received a gift that didn’t quite hit the mark? An experience I’m sure everyone has been through.

Gift givers want to hit the mark, and the Unique Gift Hampers Elves and The Art Of Gift Giving teaches you how to hit the mark more often than not.

While not a very long book the “Elves” have condensed their years of experience in helping buyers express the right message and the result is a surprisingly delightful ebook that you can find on their website.

A lot of care went into the creation of this book and the authors present their gift to their customers.

The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies

It’s not just authors and shops that talk about the importance of gift giving. It’s an academic subject too.

A friend of mine studied Anthropology at university and be all accounts The Gift by Marcel Mauss is a classic from 1954 that examines primitive societies and concludes that gift giving is an absolutely fundamental aspect of our society.

Perhaps an little but heavy reading but if you want to go deeper in the gifting then this might be the book for you.

Make It Memorable

Robyn Freedman has written many books about gift giving and this book speaks specifically about the skill of making something memorable.

The book is filled with many romantic ideas such as gluing “I will always love you” spelled out in letters onto your scrabble board.

If you are looking for tips to make a gift giving impact that won’t be forgotten then I’m sure you will find something in there. Memorable gifts are rarely about spending lots of money but more in the significance of the actions.

An informative guide although perhaps guilty of being a little too simplistic at times.

Another guide about how to select the right gift and bring joy to the recipient. Lash Fary built up his experience as a gift giver by operating a business that provided for gifts at massive events such as The Grammys and the MTV Awards.

Attendees at these evens usually receive a gift from the organizers and it was Lash Fary that was the brains behind the gift baskets that went out.

An entertaining read and a peek behind the scenes that may be intriguing to those that like a bit of celebrity gossip.

You’ve always wanted to travel, but you’ve never been sure how to start your trip. Or maybe you like to live vicariously through books. There are many great travel books out there, so it’s very hard to know which books to turn to. These five books are amazing books that will help you travel the world and spark your imagination.

100 Countries, 5000 Ideas: Where to Go, When to Go, What to See, What to Do

This book is an amazing book just to have. It begins with a section that helps you choose where to go based on your unique interests. It then gives you an overview of one hundred countries by giving you their highlights. This includes special times of the year, interesting sights, and interesting activities. This book will change your view of the world before you ever leave your house.

The Art of Travelling Light – Smart Packing for Today’s Traveller

This travel book is unique in that it focuses more on the “how-to” of travelling. Many travel books tell you where to go and what to do. This book tells you how to most efficiently get there. It gives you the best packing methods and tells you which luggage to use, but it also provides excellent tips for navigating airports.

Lonely Planet Travel Book

This book is your guide to travel across the world. This book highlights unique aspects of each country. If you have thought of visiting a country, this book will tell you what to see there. It is an investment full of knowledge and adventure.

How to Be the World’s Smartest Traveller (and Save Time, Money, and Hassle)

This book is written by a travel columnist. It is full of advice, tips, and solutions to common travelling problems. This book tells you how to travel smart and how to solve problems that you may encounter while you are out in the world. This book is a great resource for anyone planning to go anywhere.

1000 Places to See Before You Die

This book is full of places to go and things to do. It makes excellent suggestions for people travelling on a variety of budgets from all walks of life. You will find advice on how to have the best experience as you travel the world. This book is aimed at bringing each reader the best possible travel experience and has a wide variety of suggestions to offer.

Summing Up

Of course you can just set off and wing it and that’s part of the fun of travelling but perhaps reading a few books before hand might add to the enjoyment of your trips! These books will certainly help you out in that regard!

We all know that one of the best ways to get fit is through jogging, but how many of us have tried it out and failed. Could it be that we need the right mental models to think like a runner in order to become a runner.

If you’ve ever tried to get into jogging seriously and failed maybe it’s because you were not thinking how a jogger thinks. There is a theory that thought lead to emotions and emotions lead to actions.

Next time before your grudgingly pull on your running sneakers and try to force yourself around the block why don’t you first try to fill your head with the right thoughts about running, and where better to find those thoughts then straight from successful runners mouths.

Here at Squeaky Clean we are aware that christmas is coming soon and not long after that we’ll be in January and new years resolutions will be flying about. So we decided to check out some of the best jogging books to try to get inspired for the coming new year.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Chris McDougall’s book born to run is a hugely influential book. It tells the story of human tribes that hunt down their pray by endurance running and literally running their prey all day until it’s exhausted. This book inspired a whole barefoot running movement. Essential reading for any serious runner.

Let’s Go Baby: A Family Across The Finish Line – Emily Adams

Heidi Jacobs tells her personal story of how she overcame post natal depression by getting back into running with her baby in a stroller, and how her jogging stroller events have helped countless mums to get active again after childbirth. This is a short book but I found Heidi’s story very touching and inspiring. The book is self published and available for free download on her website.

My Best Race: 50 Runners and the Finish Line They’ll Never Forget – Chris Cooper

If you want to run well you need the right mindset. In this collection of stories we hear from 50 runners about the best races they have run in their life. The runners come from diverse backgrounds and ran different types of races but the stories all cover the important subject of mindset. If you want to think like a runner then reading this book will get you half way there before you even leave your sofa. Don’t be surprised if you jump up and start running once you have finished it. Inspiring stuff!

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – Haruki Murakami

Murakami is one of the most celebrated authors alive today and his novels are loved by many all over the world. This book which is obsensibly on the subject or running and training for mathathons is so much more than that. Murakami talks about writing novels and about life using running as a vehicle to delve into these deeper subects.

If you are a runner yourself you will recognise the challange that Marakami describes they are common place but few athetes will also have the linguistic talent to descibe the subjects so elequently.

The Runner’s Guide to the Meaning of Life – Amby Burfoot

In life, if something in not growing it’s dying. In the runners meaning of life running is seen as a refusal to be stopped. The runners personal battle to keep going even when their body and mind is screaming at them to stop is a victory over life. Keep moving. Keep living.

Conclusion

Runners do think differently from your average couch potato and if you want to turn into a successful runner you will need to learn to start thinking like one sooner or later. Better start now and make your transition to jogger easier with the right mental models.

Yoga is a perfect form of exercise for all age groups. It improves strength and flexability and can help bring peace of mind and relaxation.

You can do yoga at indoors or outdoors, at home or at the gym or if you are travelling you can do it in your hotel room too.

If you are interested in getting into Yoga we have prepared a Squeaky Clean recommended reading list of yoga books to help you get started.

Ashtanga Yoga: The Practice Manual

The Practice manual is a great help for those who want to study Yoga at home. It does help to be a little but familiar with some of the Ashtanga poses but the book provides a detailed description of every pose including options for beginners as well as breath instruction.

The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker’s Guide to Extraordinary Living

The Wisdom of Yoga is an exceptional book that goes into a deeper understand of the true nature of Yoga. Yoga is more than give simple postures and exercises there is a rich history of Eastern philosophy that underlies the dicipline. Stephen Cope writes clearly and explains everything to the reader making the deeper power of Yoga more accessible. If you have practiced Yoga before this book will help you go deeper.

The Yoga Bible

The Yoga Bible is all about postures and helps you get a handle on them with simple setp by step color photographs. Yoga instructors love it because it helps them comminicate to their students how to position their bodies correctly.

Hatha Yoga Illustrated

Hatha Yoga focuses on physical and mental strength building exercises. It’s another photographic illustrated guide and comes highly recommended. While the photos may make you think this is a beginners book it does go quite deep.

How Yoga Works

Lastly I had to include How Yoga works. This is actually a book that uses fiction to tell the story of Yoga and the true meaning of Yoga and spirituality. Despite it’s functional title is really a book for students of Yoga that want to go deeper. Or read it simply for pleasure and you may catch the Yoga bug!

How Yoga works teaches you how to like a life fully of happiness and compassion.

YouTube

I had to include Youtube here as it’s probably one of the best sources for Yoga instruction there is. There are 1000′s of Yoga videos there to help you master this discipline.

Lastly if you still think Yoga is simple stretching and not real fitness training take a look this video from Kino MacGregor. Amazing upperbody strength and control!!

There we have it, 5 of the top books on Yoga and videos thrown in as a bonus. The books all come highly recommended and we have taken care to make sure our list is clean from any duffers. The photographic books are obviously good practical guides to get started with home study perhaps combined with YouTube if you get stuck.There are some well regarded options if you want to go a bit deeper and remember Yoga is like any other form of fitness. You will get back out what you put into it. Have fun!